Department of Educational Leadership and Professional Studies

This program is designed to prepare graduate students who are certified teachers to work professionally in the highly specialized field of teaching reading and writing to P-12 students. As a literacy specialist, you must be able to diagnose and correct various kinds of reading and writing problems; work cooperatively with school staff specialists, as well as basic skills
instructors and community resource people; counsel parents of children who have reading/writing problems; give help to, and demonstrate for, teachers and administrators; and organize and administer a total school literacy program.

Graduates of this program may be certified as reading specialists (P-12) and are also qualified to work with college students and adults who have reading problems. Students also have the option to take the M.Ed. in language arts concentration that focuses on all forms of communicative literacy, including the use of technology to transmit and receive meaningful discourse in school settings.